Follow the crazy adventures of an Alabama cyclist taking on the Race Across America in 2015.

Tour of Elk Grove – 1/2 Stage Race

Quick summary: 15th place, 101 starters, 86 finishers.The details: Fast, flat race with lots of crashes. I was in a couple of ill-fated moves, and it certainly looked like we were heading for a field sprint. I fought for good position most of the race but somehow managed to be at the wrong place for all the time bonus sprints and primes. Towards the last two laps, I made sure to attack up the side any time the pace slowed just to keep my position in the group. Also in the last two laps a move got away right after a $500 prime. I was in the front and watched it go thinking there was no way it would stay away — well, it must have had just the right composition because the field didn’t chase right away and the group of four just barely managed to stay away to the end. Meanwhile, back in the pack I was fighting for position and attacked hard up the right-hand side just as there was a surge. We reached the technical part of the course (four 90 degree turns in a row) and the pace was close to 30 mph going into the first corner, accelerated hard out of each corner but still lost some positions in each of the corners so that I had slid back into maybe the top 20 or 25. Coming out of the last corner, I jumped as hard as I could and was making up some ground on the lefthand side in the sprint when the main body of the sprint moved left and the lefthand curb appeared to move to the right (maybe not but that’s what it felt like). The sprint was very umm physical with bouncing and bumping – 50 meters from the line, I got hit from the left and from the right at the same time but luckily we all stayed upright and I came across the line 11th in the sprint, 15th for the race (with the 4 guys from the break finishing just ahead of the sprint). Ok, too tired to post any more tonight, but I’ll upload power/heart rate data tomorrow.